Calculating trip costs vs DVC cost

New poster but WDW veteran here. I'm wondering if any of you might have an idea of how to best compute the approximate cost of a future trip vs a DVC membership. The general plan is for a family trip over April vacation week in 2015 (my sister is finishing up her Masters to become a hs or ms teacher so the specific dates will depend on her school's calendar.) Our party would be my family (me, DH, DD age 4.5 and DS age 2.5), sister and potential partner if she has a BF/DH at that time, and our parents. Options for rooms would be either three separate rooms at a deluxe resort or a villa with 3 or 4 rooms. The latter would be great but more expensive, of course. Obviously that trip alone would be less than purchasing a DVC membership, but if the difference between what we might pay for a membership (to be used by any of us in the future) with enough points to cover a week like that is not huge, I feel it would be worth investigating at least. Our family growing up visited 6 or 7 times, and DH and I honeymooned there (his first visit where he had a blast.) With kids we want to visit semi-frequently, and will probably also visit DL as we live in Washington State and it's so much closer. I definitely see multiple visits to both parks as our kids grow up.

Anyhow, given all that is there a way to roughly compute how many points we'd need to have (banking and borrowing from the bookend years, and open to resale) for either scenario of separate rooms or a large villa, and compare that cost to straight up non-DVC cost as much as possible? Obviously I can't get it apples to apples but I'd like to see if its even worth investigating or if I'm just talking vastly different numbers. Needless to say not being the only one who would be using the points in a shared membership I'd need to get the rest of the family on board, as right now we ourselves can't cover the full cost of owning. I hope that is not too complicated, but i figured someone here might be able to share some thoughts. Thanks so much!

First thing you need to figure out is where you want to stay - that will weigh heaviliy on both the "normal" room rate and the cost of buying into DVC (for comparison purposes). So I would order both the Disney Planning DVD and DVC DVD and sit in front of a screen for a couple of hours ... And since it looks like you may be purchasing DVC as an "extended" family, be prepared for lots of differing opinions ...

Second - remember that DVC is a timeshare, with the most "benefits" for those who visit WDW at least every other year. So if that is not going to be you, DVC is probably not for you ... Also, since it sounds like you haven't been to WDW in a few years and never toured any of the DVC properties, buying into DVC may bring some pleasant and unpleasant "surprises" - so you really need to focus on:

Third - start trolling the various DIS Boards DVC sites and develop a thorough understanding of DVC and its costs and benefits. You'll be spending thousands of dollars, so you want to spend them wisely and to be comfortable doing so.

When we bought into DVC this past summer, I was thinking along the same lines as you: we are going to spend all this money to "rent" a room for a week, maybe we would make out better putting that money into DVC...

However, in our case, we had visted WDW about every 18 months for the past few years - and planned to do so in the future ... And we had stayed at AKL a couple of times, LOVED IT! - and knew it was the only DVC home resort for us ... (an regretted not buy in sooner ...) So for us, to a certain degree it was a "no brainer" ...

1st you can't consider cost of tickets, dining and travel to WDW as you will pay that whether you do DVC or cash resie. So, go on WDW website and put in this April and what you may be thinking your group will want to book for a cost idea. Now, if you buy DVC they only have 2BR and 3BR villas (no 4BRs but you can get a 2BR and a studio). If you buy SSR via resale (SSR is cheaper points and cheaper annual dues and resale is cheaper) you would need 477 points to get a Treehouse villa (has 3 BRs and is the 3BR at WDW that costs the least points...OKW 3BR is next and both are the cheapest WDW resort points to buy) the 1st week of April 2013...or 366 points the rest of April. You could buy 240 points (and use 2 years worth). 240 points will cost $1154.40 in annual dues for 2013 (they go up a tad each year). And you'd pay around $55 (give or take a few bucks) per point for SSR...so, $13200. You could get 160 points and use 3 years worth (you could look for a contract that has banked points) and pay $796.60 in annual dues and $8800 for the contract. 160 points is a good place to start. Buying DVC, though, is really only good if you plan to use it at least every 2 years.

I recently looked at the same situation and agree with the last post that you need to look at how many points you would need. For your group you would need a 3 br villa which would require a large number of points if buying into dvc. If you look at when Easter falls in 2015 and when Spring Break normally is in your schoold district you will see whether or not you would need Premier or Magic season. We are going in 2014 because Easter falls later in the month and we will use substantially less points for our Spring Breake. To make this trip happen you will probably need 250 to 300 points for a week, which you could bank 2013 points use 2014 and borrow some of 2015 to make this trip happen. This is assuming you pick a use month that is later than when you take the trip. If buying direct from Disney you're looking at over $30,000 for the initial buy in plus yearly maintenance cost between $4.50 to $6.50 per point depending on the resort you choose. If you buy resale the initial cost would be $15,000 to $20,000 with the maintenance cost being the same. There are a few restrictions buying resale. You could also rent points if needed but if you buy into dvc you better be ready to take Disney trips at least every other year to get your money's worth. Good luck planning your trip, I spent two and a half years planning my family's first big trip to Disney World and it was a blast yet stressful time.

I recently looked at the same situation and agree with the last post that you need to look at how many points you would need. For your group you would need a 3 br villa which would require a large number of points if buying into dvc. If you look at when Easter falls in 2015 and when Spring Break normally is in your schoold district you will see whether or not you would need Premier or Magic season. We are going in 2014 because Easter falls later in the month and we will use substantially less points for our Spring Breake. To make this trip happen you will probably need 250 to 300 points for a week, which you could bank 2013 points use 2014 and borrow some of 2015 to make this trip happen. This is assuming you pick a use month that is later than when you take the trip. If buying direct from Disney you're looking at over $30,000 for the initial buy in plus yearly maintenance cost between $4.50 to $6.50 per point depending on the resort you choose. If you buy resale the initial cost would be $15,000 to $20,000 with the maintenance cost being the same. There are a few restrictions buying resale. You could also rent points if needed but if you buy into dvc you better be ready to take Disney trips at least every other year to get your money's worth. Good luck planning your trip, I spent two and a half years planning my family's first big trip to Disney World and it was a blast yet stressful time.

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I was looking at Animal Kingdom villas when for a 3 BR, points needed can vary widely.

As previous posters have suggested, you need to account for all of the different costs of ownership vs. the cost of booking direct or renting points. The problem you're going to run into is that you need a massive amount of points for this trip and it is a trip that you are not likely to replicate. Which means whatever contract you buy most likely either won't be enough for your stay (even with banking and borrowing) or will be too large for you in the long run.

I encourage you to do the math and come to your own decision, but if you're looking to skip to the answer page I'll tell you this: DVC is a long term proposition, and in the majority of cases savings don't kick in until at least the sixth year, but more often the eighth or ninth. For this trip, I would strongly recommend that you rent points either from an owner advertising here on the rent/trade board or from a broker. Get a good feel for DVC on this trip and then decide if it is something you would want to do long term.

One other thing...I would recommend saving until you reach the point where you can pay for your membership in full, and by yourself. Co-owning will lead to headaches. It's inevitable.

Thanks very much for your replies. We haven't gotten so far as to determine where we'd like to stay in '15, but probably BW, BC, AKL would be top contenders. I agree that we wouldn't use as many points for future trips, but I could definitely see our family of 4 using some for trips, my sister using some for her own trips, and my folks using some potentially to go off park. But who knows for sure, we really need to sit down and talk. I'm just the preliminary researcher because I'm so excited and feel like this might be a good opportunity to explore. FTW DH and I did do a DVC orientation (Bay Lake) in '09 on our honeymoon so we are semi-familiar with the process and ups/downs.

Thanks very much for your replies. We haven't gotten so far as to determine where we'd like to stay in '15, but probably BW, BC, AKL would be top contenders. I agree that we wouldn't use as many points for future trips, but I could definitely see our family of 4 using some for trips, my sister using some for her own trips, and my folks using some potentially to go off park. But who knows for sure, we really need to sit down and talk. I'm just the preliminary researcher because I'm so excited and feel like this might be a good opportunity to explore. FTW DH and I did do a DVC orientation (Bay Lake) in '09 on our honeymoon so we are semi-familiar with the process and ups/downs.

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Don't let your emotions enter into a business decision. DVC has changed a bit since 2009, we are now on our third Disney executive running the place, rules and policies have changed and the number of resorts and the number of owners have increased, thus the competition trying to book at 7 months is greater.

The DVC sales meetings will only sell you on the positives and the basics of the DVC program. DVC works for some and not for others, do yourself a favor and keep reading and researching.

Thanks very much for your replies. We haven't gotten so far as to determine where we'd like to stay in '15, but probably BW, BC, AKL would be top contenders. I agree that we wouldn't use as many points for future trips, but I could definitely see our family of 4 using some for trips, my sister using some for her own trips, and my folks using some potentially to go off park. But who knows for sure, we really need to sit down and talk. I'm just the preliminary researcher because I'm so excited and feel like this might be a good opportunity to explore. FTW DH and I did do a DVC orientation (Bay Lake) in '09 on our honeymoon so we are semi-familiar with the process and ups/downs.

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It kind of sounds like you plan to share a membership with family. If the family has any kind of financial troubles, the DVC membership becomes fair game for settlement. Each family member really needs to own their own points. And you can each book part of the stay if you decide you want to vacation together.

When you say "my folks using some potentially to go off park", do you mean trading out? Or using them at VB or HHI?

I would only buy the points that your family could/would use. PPs are right, if anyone named on the deed gets into financial trouble, the contract could be ordered to be sold to settle debts. Perhaps buy in at one of the DVCs with a hotel attached, so if extra rooms are needed, part of the party could stay as a cash guest at the hotel.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards App, please excuse any typos or autocorrects!

Thanks very much for your replies. We haven't gotten so far as to determine where we'd like to stay in '15, but probably BW, BC, AKL would be top contenders. I agree that we wouldn't use as many points for future trips, but I could definitely see our family of 4 using some for trips, my sister using some for her own trips, and my folks using some potentially to go off park. But who knows for sure, we really need to sit down and talk. I'm just the preliminary researcher because I'm so excited and feel like this might be a good opportunity to explore. FTW DH and I did do a DVC orientation (Bay Lake) in '09 on our honeymoon so we are semi-familiar with the process and ups/downs.

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I don't presume to know about your family dynamics, but I would caution you about getting into this type of situation with anyone who isn't your spouse. In my opinion there are just too many opportunities for something to go wrong, which most likely means that it will. It only takes one time for one of your in laws to use a few too many points, leaving you short of your allocation that you need for your trip, for things to blow up.

Again, not to suggest that your family is like this, but I know a "friend" (read: me) whose brother wanted to go in on a real estate deal. My friend (again, me) said no. Good thing, too, because two years later my friend's brother (you're following this by now, right? Its me, and so therefore it's my brother) got involved in a divorce. Had I done this deal with him (Um, I mean had "my friend" done this deal with him), the property would have become involved in the settlement. What a nightmare that would have been.

My MIL and FIL paid us for use of 1/2 of our OKW points with intent to stay at OKW every January for 6 nights. We bought 200 OKW points, in 2006, when we lived in NC...we moved to MD in 2007 and realized we would not be able to do the 3 trips in 2 years that we planned (cost of living is higher in MD and we just couldn't afford flying to Orlando that often and pay for park tickets too...we figured we could drive every other year). So, we wanted to break our contract in half and sell half...but you can't do that. We decided to just sell the whole thing and listed it. But we kept feeling like we still wanted some points and didn't want to sell and then buy another contract with 100-125 points...it would be a hassle and we'd likely lose some money. MIL and FIL had just done a trip to WDW using SIL's SSR points and fell in love with WDW (specifically WDW in January). They told us they wanted points and offered to buy 1/2 of ours...they paid us $55/point for 100 points/year. They pay 1/2 our MF each year. We didn't add them to the deed or membership or anything. They trust us to give them their points and we trust that they will pay the MF (they actually harass us about when the MF are due and how much do they owe). I book their trips for them and in fact they have actually used more than the 100/year since they bought (they fell in love with a 1BR...since FIL likes to get up at the crack of dawn and he can go out to the TV room and leave MIL to sleep in...they also fell in love with OKW's HH section). It works very well for us.

I will say that I would not do this with all of our family members...there are some that I absolutely would NEVER do this with. So, you do have to be careful because it could be a nightmare situation

We also had to add on. Our finances settled in after a couple years in MD, so we added on 75 HH points. And now we are adding on 100 AKV points. We like to get the APs (or PAPs when it's a deal like this year) and do 2 trips in a year (about 10-12 days in total) and then skip the following year. So, in 2011 we did 2 trips on the APs and this year we will do 2 on the PAPs. And then we do a beach trip the in between years- sort of...2009 we did HH and 2012 we did VB and 2014 we will do HH again.

You could possibly buy enough points for your immediate family, then have the necessary amount of points needed for your large family vacation purchased through a transfer of points from another member. You don't pay Maintenance fees on those additional points, and you won't purchase more than you need to for your individual family.

If you do purchase DVC, i'd purchase a few additional points, just in case the powers that be change the point charts around.

It looks like there may be a change in the way you "do" Disney after a while too.... like you may want to stay at your resort for recreation more than previously (once you spend time in the parks year after year).

I can see why it's said that what may fit now may not be the same fit later.